South Africa is facing higher levels of violent crime as contact crimes like murder, truck jacking, carjacking and kidnapping continue to spiral across the country, the latest SAPS crime statistics have revealed.
Police Minister Bheki Cele lamented as “dismal” the picture painted by the latest SAPS crime statistics for the fourth quarter, which runs from January 1 to March 31. Announcing a new ‘Station Accountability Plan’, he called for all police stations to fight corruption and improve service delivery and response times.
According to the latest stats, contact crimes like murder, rape and assault increased by 15% during the three-month period. A 22.2% increase in murder was recorded compared to the same period in 2021.
“The first three months of this year were violent, brutal and unsafe for many South Africans. Out of the 6 083 people killed in the country, 898 of them were women and 306 were children under the age of 17 years. Alarmingly, the murder of children recorded a 37.2% increase in the period of reporting,” Cele said.
This indicates that 1 107 more people were killed in South Africa between January and March compared to the same period in 2021.
“Arguments, vigilantism, revenge or retaliation and robberies remain the top four causative factors of these deaths. A total of 2 268 people were murdered in public places such as open fields, streets, parking areas and abandoned buildings,” he added.
The second most-likely place for murder to occur, where 1 350 people were killed, was at the home of the victim or perpetrator. Liquor outlets and public transport such as buses, taxis or trains were the third and fourth most likely places to be killed. Rape cases rose 13.7% and a total of 3 306 kidnapping cases were opened with the police, almost double the number of cases reported last year.
“This crime trend has shown a sharp increase, with over 1 700 more cases reported to the police compared to the same comparative period. Most of the kidnapping cases were hijacking, robbery and rape-related. The Gauteng province accounts for the bulk of the kidnapping cases, recording over a thousand more cases in the period of reporting,” Cele said.
The three police stations with the highest number of reported kidnapping cases were Kempton Park, Heidelberg stations in Gauteng province and Delmas police station in Mpumalanga.
Truck jacking increased 31.4%, while cash-in-transit robberies and carjacking rose 26.2% and 19.7% respectively. Robbery at residential premises dropped 0.4% and robbery at non-residential premises declined by 3.5%. Burglary at residential premises rose 1% while burglary at non-residential premises dropped by 6.4%.
Cele described the latest statistics as “dismal”, saying police needed to work differently and immediately implement the new Station Accountability Plan to reduce the high crime level.
“Service delivery in the context of this organisation can mean the difference between life and death,” he said.
“We expect the immediate implementation of the Station Accountability Plan - especially at the top 30 high-crime stations. This sharp focus on stations will mean all station commanders will be expected to closely monitor their unique crime situations. Every two weeks, commanders must evaluate and put in place relevant operational plans to curb crime.”
He added that senior officers from the national SAPS would be deployed to the top 30 high-crime police stations.
“Clear targets of crime reduction and eradication within timeframes must be met. As crime usually increases over the weekend, commanders must change their approach and must work throughout weekends. Police personnel should be saturating the streets over the weekends, as this is high noon of crime. There will be expeditious processes, if and when the set targets are not achieved,” he warned.
Cele added that crime intelligence must be beefed up at station level for effective crime-fighting.
“The SAPS cannot be a haven for criminals disguised as officers of the law. We call on the Ipid (Independent Police Investigative Directorate) to work with us on this one and deal with police officers, who fail the organisation.”
He said the police had made some gains and intercepted criminal syndicates involved in extortion, kidnapping, cash-in-transit heists and drug smuggling, but this had not dented the crime rate.
